Page 75 of Grim
“Why are you so tense?” I ask softly.
“Because nothing is easy anymore,” he mutters, staring at his phone. “Can’t even process a single, simple crossover.”
“Hey, that’s my friend, asshole.”
“My apologies. I just want something to go smoothly this week. Anything.”
“Okay, so if you’re in such a rush, why don’t you just use your knife thing?” I whisper.
“You meanBaiulus?” he questions.
“Is that the thing I saw you use during the—”
“Yes,” he cuts me off.
“You named your knife?”
“All reapers have a cleaving tool and all have a name. They allow us to sever the thickest threads that bind souls to their physical hosts. Those final pieces of connection are always the hardest to break.”
“AndBaiulusis yours?”
“Correct.”
“What does it mean?”
Kane sighs. “So many questions. It’s Latin. It means pallbearer, or one who carries a burden.”
“Fitting,” I mumble softly. Then I remember something and ask, “What did Asher name his blade?”
Kane bristles at the mention of his fellow reaper, but he answers, “I don’t know what it’s called, but he didn’t name it. When one becomes a reaper, you are assigned your tool. There’s a ceremony. The weapon is presented, and when you first grasp it, the name etches itself into the handle. And it becomes tied to the user. Irrevocably. For eternity.”
“That’s intense.”
“The higher-ups are nothing if not dramatic. Nothing like a bit of pageantry to raise the stakes of eternal mundanity.”
“Okay, well … yeah. That. Why don’t you use that and get Mr. Guidry moving?”
“That’s complicated.” Kane eyes me.
“Try me.”
“Well, for starters, using my blade takes energy. It’s also violent and messy and a bit barbaric, and as I said, that’s not me.”
“Not all of you,” I mumble back, remembering Asher’s words from before.
“I heard that,” he responds sharply.
“Good,” I fire back. “What other excuse do you have? Souls shouldn’t be here, right? It’s better if they cross over?”
“It is,” Kane says steely. “Decidedly better. Because when spirits stay here, they rot.” His green eyes flick to mine, sharp and burning. “They have no purpose and nopower. And that which is powerless atrophies in time. They see and feel all that they remember, but they have no way to engage with it. They are no longer a part of the world, simply trapped in it.”
He steps closer to me, and his presence is a shadow, wrapping tight around my body. “Eventually, they forget who they were, Rue. They forget why they mattered, what mattered. Or even if anything ever mattered. They’re no longer the complete soul you see before you. They become a distillation of their grief. A haunting echo of their worst memories. At best, they become a nuisance. At worst, they become dangerous.”
I shudder, something cold and foreign curling beneath my skin.
It steals my breath.
“But,” he continues, his tone shifting, “this choice, this moment of resistance, it’s the last act of human will he’ll ever have. After this, it’s over. There’s no more deciding. No more agency. Everything that follows is assigned. Processed. Ordered.” He steadies himself while shaking his head. “And I don’t want to take that final act of will from any soul. Not if I can help it.”
